Talk:Through Darkest Europe
Finally, and with a much better title, too, IMHO. TR (talk) 20:12, December 12, 2017 (UTC) :The title's an improvement. The premise, as laid out here, sounds quite simplistic. The history of vast swaths of Earth, where millions upon millions of lives play out over the course of centuries, should defy such trends as "One is a religious backwater and the other is enlightened." (As if religion and enlightenment were incompatible, anyway.) Turtle Fan (talk) 07:15, December 13, 2017 (UTC) ::I argue the premise is somewhat more complicated than that; our protagonist's journey to Rome sounds like an exercise in neo-colonialism. But, yes, it starts at a simple place. Still, it's not WWII or ACW, and it's a stand-alone, both of which increase my enthusiasm. TR (talk) 15:34, December 13, 2017 (UTC) :::Granted. Hopefully we'll be able to write a worthier summary when the time comes. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:02, December 14, 2017 (UTC) Excerpt Available here. TR (talk) 21:09, July 31, 2018 (UTC) :Predictable. A lot of "Oh, look, everything's backwards!" And even a side-trip into "I wonder what the world would be like if it were forwards--nah, that could never happen." :I don't mean to shit on it, but I really don't think I'll have much interest in this one. :By the way, I noticed lots of Arabic versions of familiar names (of course): Dawud, for instance. Yet there's one instance of Jesus, one of Christ, and none of Isa. I found that mildly surprising. Turtle Fan (talk) 21:51, August 1, 2018 (UTC) ::Yeah, I suspect HT went with simplicity for the audience rather than authenticity. He did the same thing with the Hellenic Traders--he used the proper Greek names for everyone but Alexander the Great, since he was so familiar to the readers. Jesus would certainly be the same way. For that matter, I noticed a reference to the Byzantine Empire in the excerpt, which is a pretty Western European bit of nomenclature, but again probably more familiar to the reader, and easier to use than getting bogged down in the "Easter Roman Empire" conversation. :::I'm reading the Hellenic Traders now so I'm a bit surprised I didn't think of that. (I find it irritating when the changed spelling forces me to mispronounce a familiar name, like "Platon," or when it's so different that I fail to recognize a name I know, as when Ajax became "Aias.") Of course, the point there isn't to emphasize difference. And the two references would have made it abundantly clear to Whom the Arabic name referred. ::I find it intriguing enough so far. What made this the "Grand Duchy of Italy" instead of the "Kingdom of Italy"? Why does this fictional pope need help from the Dar al-Islam? :::Interesting question about the Grand Duchy. If I had to take a stab at it: Between the Renaissance (which presumably never happened in this TL) and unification in the 19th century, the competing local powers of Italy were forever in shifting alliances with French and Spanish kings and Holy Roman Emperors. Very few Italian rulers claimed kingship before the nineteenth century (though Naples had a few) so they were invariably considered junior partners in these alliances, client states or proxies. :::Maybe some French or Spanish king or Holy Roman Emperor (though that's less likely, as an emperor still clearly outranks a king) succeeded in getting the horse he backed to unify Italy and consolidate power? Encourage, say, the Duke of Milan to promote himself to Grand Duke, and you've made it clear that he's come up in the world and isn't going back down, but because he's still not a king, you've also made it clear he's still a Trump to your Putin. :::Now that doesn't mean Italy is still a client state; they may have managed to go their own way in the intervening years, but kept the title for tradition's sake. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:57, August 2, 2018 (UTC) ::::Tuscany was a Grand Duchy under the de' Medicis, a family that was certainly ambitious (to put it mildly). Perhaps they kept going growing Tuscany until they ate Italy? It's not as interesting as your suggestion, and I can't explain yet how Rome would become the capital in that scenario, rather than Florence. :::::After a few generations, people would gradually stop thinking of the Grand Dukes as Florentine or Neopolitan or Venetian and start thinking of them as just Italian. At that point, the temptation to wrap the regime in reminders of faded imperial glory (what's-his-name was very clear that a lot of ancient history has been preserved in Rome) grows awfully strong. :::::Still doesn't explain how the ruler of such a country could absorb the Papal States without his own subjects revolting. Unless maybe the Pope at the time was not an "Aquinist," and the Grand Duke pitched his occupation of Rome as a way to compel orthodoxy out of that pope and any other reform-minded pontiffs who might be elected in the future? Turtle Fan (talk) 09:52, August 2, 2018 (UTC) ::::::With the very little we know, that seems possible. At one point, Khalid reflects that the pope's status as a "secular prince" depended on both the personality of the pope AND that of the grand duke. That suggests that, while the Vatican may be nominally/legally independent (and I don't think that's quite clear yet), the Grand Duchy still has a lot to say about the papacy. TR (talk) 17:58, August 2, 2018 (UTC) :::::::Indeed, indeed. The pope's temporal power could be even more tenuous than it is under the OTL Lateran Treaty. Which is strange, as this does seem like the kind of society where theocracy would thrive. And Khalid is clear that most if not all of Europe is Christian-dominated, and I got a sense that there was no Reformation and the Pope led all of Christendom. If both those are true, then wouldn't the other European rulers object to the Italian Grand Duke exerting such a strong influence over him? Turtle Fan (talk) 20:33, August 2, 2018 (UTC) ::::::::I suspect there have been schisms and maybe something akin to the Reformation. I don't see Aquinism forcing that level unity in European Christianity. After all, Wahhabism and other Islamic movements continued to appear even with Al-Ghazzali's philosophy available in OTL. There were proto-Protestant reform movements in OTL long before Luther was born. Several were actually quite close in time to the POD(s), and so they might have caught on better than they did in OTL. :::::::::I'm really not sure how Aquinas could be so all-important in and of himself at all; Church history is fairly crawling with theologians on his level, any number of whom could be used to cancel him out. :::::::::But if there was a Reformation (and I suppose we don't have enough one way or the other to say, though I did somehow get the sense that there hadn't been) against a backdrop of a rigorously anti-intellectual Europe--very interesting indeed. The Reformation and Counterreformation interacted with Europe's scientific history in all sorts of complex ways. Turtle Fan (talk) 19:41, August 3, 2018 (UTC) ::::::::Incidentally, while Khalid is focusing on the reversal of Aquinas and Al-Ghazali and how Aquinas "stunted" Europe, the mere fact that he and Dawud are in Italy at all fairly screams that the Islamic world has done its bit to fuck over this Europe in much the same way that OTL Europe helped fuck up the Islamic world. HT is much too aware of history to not include that parallel, and Khalid makes it clear that his country has a vested interest in propping up a reformer pope. TR (talk) 16:10, August 3, 2018 (UTC) :::::::::Yes. I would be interested to see at what point exactly geopolitics started looking significantly different, and what effects Islamic colonialism had to prevent European hegemons from emerging. :::::::::Actually, that might be why Italy doesn't have a king, come to think of it: Maybe the Muslims set about breaking up unified European nation-states before they can become regional hegemons (I can't imagine there's a German Empire, for instance) and so whoever unified Italy acted like it wasn't such a big thing to try to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Turtle Fan (talk) 19:41, August 3, 2018 (UTC) ::::Also, Sicily is not under Italian rule, which is noteworthy, but doesn't reveal much since the Muslim world did take Sicily a time or two. TR (talk) 03:31, August 2, 2018 (UTC) :::::Yeah, a Mediterranean AH always allows lots of wiggle room there. Turtle Fan (talk) 09:52, August 2, 2018 (UTC) :::As for the Pope asking for Berber help--could be anything. The book might have a chance to win me over if it launches into a smart thriller and keeps the "It's Opposite Day for stereotypes about Western Europe and the Middle East!" stuff to a tolerable minimum. :::It does seem odd that there's some sort of analog of the Lateran Treaty in effect; if Italy's so full of religious fanatics, that should not be possible, as public opinion would surely have been strongly enough on the Pope's side to compel the Grand Duke to tread very lightly indeed. I would instead look for a caliph who's got a small Vatican-sized chunk of an otherwise secular Middle Eastern metropolis; that's a case of "Look! It's backwards!" that flows from the premise organically. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:57, August 2, 2018 (UTC) ::::"Caliph Blank's secular power didn't extend past Mecca, but Muslims the world over listened to him." I suspect that's coming. TR (talk) 16:10, August 3, 2018 (UTC) :::::Yeah. Turtle Fan (talk) 19:41, August 3, 2018 (UTC) ::And it does seem like it will add some variety to our project here. TR (talk) 22:03, August 1, 2018 (UTC) :::We've already got Aquinas and Algazel thanks to IHP. Now we'll add a section saying "They switched!" Turtle Fan (talk) 02:57, August 2, 2018 (UTC) ::::Well, there is a tossed offer titular reference to Urban II and the First Crusade. Maybe we'll get enough detail there to justify articles. The visit to Pope Marcellus IX might give some character a moment to think about other popes, like that scene with the Governors-General of the NAU. Or we might get such a scene might for the Grand Dukes of Italy. Plus we don't know that much about other parts of the world yet. TR (talk) 03:31, August 2, 2018 (UTC) :::::It appears Seattle has displaced LA as the West Coast's most important metropolis. If so we'd have a counterexample to HT's notorious civic pride. ::::::Which means Chief Seattle was still around in this world. I suppose Harry might shoe-horn a quick reference to the "chief who foughtpeace with Muslims. TR (talk) 16:10, August 3, 2018 (UTC) :::::It does all remind me a bit of Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, specifically of Muslim explorers colonizing first Europe (almost devoid of human life two centuries after the Black Death proved much, much more virulent) then most of the places that Europeans later colonized. Not a great book, but some of that stuff was intriguing. Turtle Fan (talk) 09:52, August 2, 2018 (UTC) POD? Judging by the excerpt, the first stated POD is that Al-Ghazzali was pro-science rather than anti-science. Followed, predictably, by a counterpoint reversal for Thomas Aquinas. A bit unimaginative as PODs go, but distressingly common in AH. (I remember some philosophical novel which was just a long set of musings, punctuated by similes such as "just like when Mary Stuart had her cousin Elizabeth Tudor executed" and "when the aviator Icarus arrived at his destination, mourning the loss of his father Daedalus who had fallen." I guess the author just wanted to say "see, I wrote AH!") :See above for our thoughts on this. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:34, August 8, 2018 (UTC) I guess the POD (so far as we know) is c. 1100?JonathanMarkoff (talk) 23:01, August 6, 2018 (UTC) :PODS, I should think. 1st C. 1100, 2nd C. 1265. TR (talk) 02:00, August 7, 2018 (UTC) Geography As noted, Seattle seems to be the iconic West Coast city rather than Los Angeles. Given the POD, it makes sense that there couldn't be a city there with a Spanish Catholic name. When time comes to catalog this story, we might have to say "the precise location of this Seattle is unknown. It is included here for convenience," unless there are further references to it. And can we assume that "New Damascus" is located on and around Manhattan Island? It looks like we'll have an extensive new subsection for Rome, and a new article for Tunis where our heroes have just come from. We have references to Cairo, Tangier, Shanghai, Jakarta, and London, although so far I'm not certain they will be enough to justify new articles and/or sections, since the references don't reveal much information beyond "these cities still exist". The references to Delhi might be useful; so far it's not clear whether the "Sultanate of Delhi" refers to just the city and its environs, or the Indian subcontinent generally.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 23:14, August 6, 2018 (UTC) ::::Why borrow trouble? We'll know what we can do soon enough. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:38, August 8, 2018 (UTC) :Hopefully there are maps. TR (talk) 02:00, August 7, 2018 (UTC) :LATER-also, there was a real world Delhi Sultanate that existed right around the time of the POD(s) so, the TDE is probably the same thing or close enough as makes no difference. Link. TR (talk) 21:27, August 8, 2018 (UTC) ::I would hope so, but precedent is against it. As far as I recall, the only HT AH that provided maps was Southern Victory. Maps would really have come in handy in Atlantis Series, but we never got any.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 06:47, August 7, 2018 (UTC) :::The Two Georges also had maps. I point that out since T2G and TDE are both Tor books, whereas Atlantis was Penguin. The publisher might make a difference on that score. TR (talk) 15:42, August 7, 2018 (UTC) :::Also, Worldwar had a map showing the Race colonies along with the extent of the Not-empires. I believe it was in the front piece of the first Colonization book. Del Ray if you are wondering. ML4E (talk) 17:03, August 7, 2018 (UTC) ::::All three Col books, actually. It did not update as borders shift from one book to the next, though. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:38, August 8, 2018 (UTC) Single POV novel? So far, Khalid al-Zarzisi is the only POV. Do you think we'll get another POV, maybe one of the bad guys from that Aquinist group?JonathanMarkoff (talk) 23:21, August 6, 2018 (UTC) :I rather doubt it, but who knows? TR (talk) 00:59, August 7, 2018 (UTC) :Hard to say but T2G was the only other novel length mystery and it had the one POV. I would think that an investigation of a conspiracy would keep the bad guys hidden so none of them would be a POV. RB would be a counter-example except, in that case, I think HT was more interested in showing the effects of a successful invasion of England and the conspiracy was more incidental to the themes of the story. One other possibility for TDE would be al-Zarzisi's partner but I think we would have already seen it given the length of the excerpt. ML4E (talk) 17:14, August 7, 2018 (UTC) :I'm curious, Jonathan: Why are you so eager to ask questions that we can't possibly answer now, but whose answers will be revealed to all of us at the same time in the very near future? Turtle Fan (talk) 06:42, August 8, 2018 (UTC) Lit com I think this is early yet. TR (talk) 21:34, August 7, 2018 (UTC) :I can't imagine it will ever be timely, or necessary in any way. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, August 8, 2018 (UTC) ::Yes, when the time comes, I think a simple "see also" will probably do. TR (talk) 14:45, August 8, 2018 (UTC) :::Agreed. ML4E (talk) 21:05, August 8, 2018 (UTC) It's out It was delivered to my Kindle last night. I read through the first chapter (which was released in the preview in its entirety) and a half of chapter two. So far so good. I did search a little bit, and it does appear that we will have some fictional monarchs, both named and unnamed, but I don't see much evidence of historicals beyond Thomas Aquinas and Al-Ghazzali. TR (talk) 14:28, September 18, 2018 (UTC) Finished Not his best, but still pretty enjoyable. He kind of beats some of his analogies to death ("The Aquinists will never change, what can we civilized Muslims do to fix them if they don't want to be fixed"), and I think having a POV aside from Khalid would have helped here and there. On the whole, though, a pretty good standalone. TR (talk) 22:13, September 19, 2018 (UTC) :Care to spoil? I have no plans to read it in the foreseeable future, at least not based on the available information. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:45, September 22, 2018 (UTC) ::Sure. Anything in particular? TR (talk) 00:53, September 22, 2018 (UTC) :::I really don't know enough to ask much in the way of specific questions. Guess we can start with, what did they go to Italy to investigate? Turtle Fan (talk) 16:30, September 22, 2018 (UTC) ::::Cosimo III decides his government is not equipped to tackle the Aquinists without more "sophisticated" help. It's a little like the "military advisers" model--send experts to inexperienced countries and hope it doesn't make things worse. Then they get sucked into a bloody rebellion by the Aquinists from Italy with help from some Aquinists from certain of the German states. TR (talk) 17:22, September 22, 2018 (UTC) :::::Did they have a specific credible threat, or was it just "Please send us two guys in case something comes up"? Because if the latter, that seems horribly convenient. ::::::Credible threat. The Aquinists were already active throughout the globe. It seemed that they were up to something, and Cosimo wanted extra help. TR (talk) 01:49, September 23, 2018 (UTC) :::::::I assumed they were active worldwide and were an ongoing source of tension by their very existence. What did they pull off in Italy, exactly? TR (talk) 16:32, September 23, 2018 (UTC) : Turtle Fan (talk) 00:45, September 24, 2018 (UTC) :::::::I'm also wondering about the state of Christendom in general. Just how prominent are these Aquinists? (Ugh, what a word; it's not like the Wahabi fanatics call themselves "Ghazallites" in the real world.) We'd had some question over whether there was a Reformation or whether all of Europe looked to Rome; how did that pan out? Turtle Fan (talk) 06:39, September 23, 2018 (UTC) ::::::::I think proportionally comparable to the Wahabists. They don't represent a majority of Christians, but they tap into the resentment of the poor in Europe who hate their own authoritarian regimes and feel left behind by the rest of the world. No evidence of a Reformation. There are very broad references to Orthodoxy, but denominations aren't really examined. TR (talk) 16:32, September 23, 2018 (UTC) :::::::::Good, that sounds about like what I'd look for here. By the way, do we get examples of anti-Christian prejudice in the more developed countries to match . . . well, you know? Any asshole politicians making hay out of inciting racism against Europeans? Turtle Fan (talk) 00:45, September 24, 2018 (UTC) ::::::::::Yes, and HT beats the twee to death.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 08:36, September 28, 2018 (UTC) :::::::::::No surprises there, then. Turtle Fan (talk) 01:42, September 29, 2018 (UTC) :::::The German states, huh? Somewhere up above I had guessed that Muslim countries meddled in European politics to prevent a regional hegemon from emerging, and specifically predicted that German unification never happened. Did I guess right, or was it just coincidence? Turtle Fan (talk) 00:53, September 23, 2018 (UTC) ::::::There is an unnamed German emperor. He's supposed to rule over the kingdoms, principalities and archbishoprics that make up Germany. However, we learn at one point that he is so poor he can't attend a diplomatic function, whereas a couple of his supposed subject princes can easily afford the trip. ::::::The state of this affairs is unexplained. If I had to guess, the HRE collapsed or was reformed into a German Empire, but the emperor was designed to be even weaker than the Holy Roman Emperor. TR (talk) 01:49, September 23, 2018 (UTC) :::::::Hmm. Interesting. How about other countries that we've known as great powers throughout European history? Britain, France, Russia, Spain? Any explanation as to why the Italian monarch falls short of a kingly title? Turtle Fan (talk) 06:39, September 23, 2018 (UTC) ::::::::France's King Jean XXIII is the only other monarch who gets a name. His son, the Dauphin, shows up briefly (unnamed). Britain is still divided into England, Scotland and Ireland (which is itself a collection of principalities). An unnamed prince of Wales shows up, as does a Thane of Cawdor and two unnamed Irish prince. Spain is a region--Aragon and Castile are still separate monarchies. Portugal is also a monarchy--the unnamed crown prince shows up. (You didn't ask, but since were were discussing Iberia...) Russia is never even discussed. ::::::::::There is a reference to Croatia being a Catholic principality, while Serbia is in the Seljuk Empire, and Croats and Serbs hate each other as usual.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 08:36, September 28, 2018 (UTC) :::::::::Is this the same shindig that the German Emperor had to pass on? What was it, exactly? Turtle Fan (talk) 00:45, September 24, 2018 (UTC) ::::::::Cosimo III's family unified Italy in the comparatively recent past. It's never said why they went with a grand duchy rather than a kingdom. Spit-balling random ideas here, it may have something to do with the fact that the Holy Roman Emperor also held the title of King of Italy for a few centuries, with the real movers and shakers of the Italian states being various dukes. Something like that. TR (talk) 16:32, September 23, 2018 (UTC) :::::::::I suppose that makes sense. From the preview it sounded like there was real nostalgia for ancient Rome, which would have to be understood as the height of European civilization in this timeline, but I suppose they couldn't bring themselves to claim imperial titles. Particularly not if the Kaiser is a pauper and the HREs were, well, HREs. Moving outside Europe: Who are the great powers of the Muslim world? Is there a caliphate? Exactly how widespread is Islam? Given that New Damascus is one of the great American cities, I'm assuming it was Arabs who colonized the "Sunset Lands." Am I right? What about Asia? Turtle Fan (talk) 00:45, September 24, 2018 (UTC) :Based on my own reading (I've done about 70% of the novel), there aren't that many references to Asia outside Arabia. What I do know is that India is split between the Islamic Sultanate of Delhi (presumably northern India) and Hindu states in South India, China remains prosperous, Japan appears to have kept up, and Buddhism's influence is limited primarily to China and Japan. Other than that, there aren't that many references I could tell from my own reading. I can answer the other questions later with more careful reading. --Frozen Wind (talk) 05:31, September 24, 2018 (UTC) Disappointing world-building This novel suffers from the lack of a concrete POD, in the vein of ''In the Presence of Mine Enemies'' and ''The Gladiator''. HT just wanted to show an inverted world without worrying about how it got to be that way. I would have liked to see just a little more information, maybe references to how any historical figures' lives were altered after the POD, and the names of a few more fictional kings, both in the context of previous Grand Dukes of Italy and contemporary rulers of various nations. The geography of the fictional countries can be confusing, and a map would really have helped. There are several references to Arkansistan. I presume it is based in Arkansas, but its territory includes Tuscaloosa, so the nation must include at least part of Alabama, and by implication, much of Mississippi. Plus, there is a reference to significant dams in the nation, suggesting Tennessee. And New Damascus is never explained, but in conventional AH shorthand we can assume it is New York. There is a reference to Manahatta in the later chapters, but this does not rule out the possibility that Manahatta is just a subdivision of NDC. There is also a fleeting reference to Oregonistan; I wonder if Seattle is part of that nation. There were just too many unanswered big-picture questions, as HT focused on the small picture of Italy as Afghanistan/Iraq. :That sounds very frustrating. And pretty inevitable, given the nature of the story he sets up. When you've only got one POV character, even if he is something of an international man of mystery, you can't expect him to pepper his thoughts with random historical events from the world over. In fact, from the sample I read, it sounds as though HT already went too far in that direction for such reflections to flow organically. :It seems to me that, if you're going to change the world that radically in your AH, you need either to make it a sweeping, globe-spanning series, or a story with so singular a focus that world-building is not even attempted. ::In novels like this, HT really could do worse than to include an appendix like JRRT included in Return of the King. Or, more authentically and organically, to do what Alan Moore did for chapters 1 through 11 of Watchmen. Introduce a running theme where the main character frequently consults an encyclopedia or almanac, then present the appendix of the book as the relevant chapters taken from that in-universe reference book. :::Encyclopedia Expositica? I don't know, that's a rather old-fashioned cliché. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:20, September 30, 2018 (UTC) ::At the very least, have the main character at least say the names of the king and prime minister and secretary of state of his nation, and maybe discuss with another character their public personas versus their real lives as he's gotten to know them. Since those are his bosses whom he constantly aims to please, it would make sense he'd reflect about them in depth on occasion. It pissed me off when the novel had the international gathering of kings and princes and what not, then didn't give any of them a personal name.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 07:39, September 29, 2018 (UTC) :::It does seem hard to imagine he'd go to such an event without brushing up on their intelligence dossiers or something, and that this would inform his inner monologue. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:20, September 30, 2018 (UTC) :As for the lack of a clear POD: Yeah, that seems frustrating. Even if we're supposed to accept something so simplistic as "Aquinas zigged where he would have zagged and Algazel zagged where he would have zigged," that still shouldn't be enough. I don't want to understate Aquinas's importance as a theologian or philosopher, but he's only one of many such minds that Christian history has produced, and the idea that his having a different opinion would irrevocably produce such fundamental changes in Christianity is frankly absurd. :Of Algazel I know much less, but I'd be shocked if it weren't a similar story there. In fact, if there truly was nothing more to him than "Islam should be anti-intellectual," looking at the state of the world he lived in, I would say he lost that argument even among his contemporaries. Turtle Fan (talk) 01:58, September 29, 2018 (UTC) The last chapter introduces an intriguing new wrinkle to the fictional world. I wonder if HT is leaving open the possibility of a sequel but hedging his bets by not making any promises.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 09:45, September 28, 2018 (UTC) Questions and Comments on Wiki-Work Having read TDE over the weekend, a few comments and questions. First, what year does this story take place? Automatically, we tend to assume the year its published and previous comments by Turtledove support this (e.g. Supervolcano begins the next Memorial day after you start reading it). However, the technology in TDE does not correspond to OTL. The biggest difference is the lack of computers and cell/smart phones. The Aquinas use printed paper posters and pamphlets and the police use paper documents. No e-mails or texting, no social media call to arms like OTL ISIL. Also the POV reflects he is a modern man used to using modern communications like the telephone and telegraph. He is in his early forties and a bit of personal head-canon is it takes place when Turtledove was the same age i.e. late 80s eary 90s. That does fit the technological level in the story. :Harry's said that it is set "right about now", so I think he opted to handicap his society slightly, but it's still set right around 2016 or so. In text, Marcellus refers to the present as the 15th century, which is correct on the Muslim calendar. TR (talk) 21:21, October 1, 2018 (UTC) ::I haven't read the book and feel no particular need to do so. However, I would say that, if your POD is quite a long time ago, the level of technology is not a reliable way to date an AH story. Turtle Fan (talk) 07:30, October 2, 2018 (UTC) Second, I have removed references to "Oregonistan" and "Arkansistan" within U.S. state articles that Jonathan created because there is too much ambiguity in the story as to what and where those republics are located. I am inclined to create them as stand alone articles (at least for those that are more than "xxx was a republic in the Sunset Lands"). :I'm on board with putting them on a generic list of fictional countries, but we can sort that. TR (talk) 21:21, October 1, 2018 (UTC) ::Jonathan went off half cocked? How unusual. Guess we have to clean up his mess again. We sure we don't want to ban him? Turtle Fan (talk) 07:30, October 2, 2018 (UTC) Finally an observation. Turtledove does seem to have some respect for OTL Prince Charles, at least given the way he describes the Prince of Wales in TDE along with Charles III of Britain (The Two Georges). ML4E (talk) 20:59, October 1, 2018 (UTC) :For me, the TDE PoW conjures up an analog of Harry, if any OTL figure.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 09:09, October 5, 2018 (UTC) POD The template currently reads "1st POD: c. 1100 CE, 2nd POD c. 1265 CE." I think that is a little misleading. The POD is pretty vague, so it would probably be better to say "1st Known POD: c. 1100 CE, 2nd Known POD c. 1265 CE." There has to be at least one POD in between these two things, that causes the Seljuk Empire to survive past the mid 12th century. (Since Al-Ghazali was from the SE, in my headcanon I have someone showing the Sultan a bit of good advice which Al-G wrote in ATL but not in OTL, prompting the Sultan to reverse a military policy and alter the outcome of a historical battle in the SE's favour. Also, we are not sure what was happening in the years leading up to 1100. [Pope Urban II's Crusade seems to be a linchpin watershed in the timeline. Perhaps the relevant POD came about precisely because Urban and his knights were even more fanatical and unreasonable than in OTL (though it's hard to see how such a thing is possible), leading Al-G to react by wholeheartedly embracing empirical thought.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 19:42, November 5, 2018 (UTC) :HT has said on Twitter and other places that Al-Ghazali and Thomas Aquinas and their altered worldviews are the PODs. The template reflects authorial intent. TR (talk) 21:22, November 5, 2018 (UTC) Calling a rabbit a smeerp On page 307 is a reference to "skybusters" rather than skyscrapers. I find this odd because the novel has no other examples of renaming common nouns.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 22:13, November 5, 2018 (UTC) Map Going through Turtledove's twitter feed, I found the following tweet about a world map created by a fan on AlternateHistory.Com. Follow the link to see a bigger version: https://twitter.com/alt_historian/status/1165972162781618177 ML4E (talk) 19:14, August 28, 2019 (UTC) :That seems too speculative for us. Australia, Russia, etc., aren't mentioned in the novel, and only a few vague clues about the Americas are given.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 19:16, August 28, 2019 (UTC) ::I don't think ML4E is proposing we use the map, but only that he's showing us something of interest. TR (talk) 00:23, August 29, 2019 (UTC) ::Correct. There are other such maps on various AH.com threads regarding other Turtledove stories that we also haven't used. ML4E (talk) 17:51, August 29, 2019 (UTC)